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Iraqi tribal leaders demand int'l support to save Iraq

Several hundred Sunni clerics, tribal leaders, militants commanders, and businessmen attending a closed-door meeting in Amman, Jordan, said Iraq is in a 'popular revolt.'

Prominent Sunni religious leader Dr. Abdul Malek al Saadi, said 'tribes were the backbone of a broad- based insurgency battling against Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s rule. He said these forces had now captured large parts of western and northern Iraq.', Reuters reported.

Al-Saadi, said after the meeting that fighters from the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), were only part of a “revolt carried out by the tribes” in Sunni areas.

“This revolution is led by the sons of tribes who are leading it and Isil is a small part of it,” said Al Saadi, who led some of the mass peaceful protests in Iraq’s Sunni heartland in 2013 that called for an end to security abuses and perceived marginalisation and political exclusion.

Most Sunni figures said they were left with few alternatives but to fight Maliki who is now relying increasingly on Shiite militias such as Asaib Ahl Al Haq they say are funded and armed by the Iranian regime in his battle against the rebellious governorates.

A final statement, which described the situation in Iraq as worsening, urged the international community to support the aims of the millitants to save “Iraq and the region from an unknown future”.